'Don't Ignore Soreness That Doesn't Go Away,' Kara Goucher Warns

"It will catch up with you, probably when you are least ready for it," states Goucher, who'd had "three weeks of great workouts and altitude training" and thought she'd be ready to run a personal best

[3]for 5000 meters in London on August 6. Instead, she found, as she writes, "I couldn’t warm up my hip at all. It had switched from an annoying tightness to something that was clearly not right and too serious to keep running on." Goucher had a stress reaction in the neck of her femur and did not race in London. But after work with therapists and sessions on an Alter-G and an underwater treadmill, she was again able to run outside. "Maybe my hopes of pushing the pace and running aggressively at World Champs have been derailed a bit," says Goucher, who is set to run the 10,000 in Daegu. "But I honestly believe that I haven’t lost any fitness, and my body might even function better two weeks from now than it has all year. I am forging on with hope and optimism." (photo of Kara and Colt Goucher by Victah Sailer)More[4]